2 CASE HISTORIES 



plete the second year. "That boosted my self respect. If I 

 hadn't been a good student, they wouldn't have lent me it. I 

 boasted of it to my relatives. Those were two fine years." 



The college advised him to stay out a year and work to earn 

 money to complete the final year. He went back to peddling 

 but could not make a success of it. " College had made me finer, 

 more classical. I didn't like peddling now. I hated to knock on 

 doors. After two weeks I gave it up. I loafed or worked in the 

 chair factory the rest of the summer. I didn't like that sort of 

 work and wanted to return to college. My uncles borrowed 

 money from banks and let me have it so I could continue my 

 studies. And that's the reason I failed. I had no solid footing. 

 I was living on borrowed money. I couldn't concentrate my 

 mind. The money lent me by the college had no interest 

 attached and so it didn't worry me. I worried over the interest 

 my uncles had to pay. What if I failed to get a good position 

 after I graduated and were unable to repay them. I was proud. 

 I wanted to do it myself and not feel I had to have the help 

 of hard-working relatives. And so I failed. I lost at both ends. 



" A college education was to me a sort of religion. Most 

 students go for practical purposes. I looked on it differently 

 from American boys, as a spiritual endowment rather than 

 practical. At that time I was soaring, dreaming to be a poet. 

 But I couldn't write my thoughts as a poet does. I wasn't a 

 soldier, do you see? I wasn't practical. I was in a passive state. 

 I dreamed of writing, of being a professor. One of my profes- 

 sors said I had ' abortive sentimentalism.' Too much poetry, not 

 enough buckling down to work. I wasted time hanging around 

 the Y. M. C. A. playing checkers or in the gymnasium. The 

 personality of the French teacher annoyed me. I flunked French 

 right along and at midyears I flunked experimental psychology. 

 In April I was suspended. That burst the bubble. After that 

 I wanted a change of environment. I peddled for a week, 

 worked a few days, and then went home. One of the professors 

 wanted me to assist him in social service in a nearby city. He 

 put me to work making notes on the condition of back yards, 

 but I didn't satisfy him, and quit. I started for my married 

 sister's home, and the train passed through the city where my 



